An Enterprise Information Model for Knowledge Transfer with

Application Systems: The Current State of Enterprise GPS

Hans-Jürgen Scheruhn

, Elnur Bayramli

and Johannes Hintsch

FB Automatisierung und Informatik, Hochschule Harz, Germany

Faculty of Computer Science, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany

Keywords: ERP, Enterprise Architecture Framework, Enterprise Information Model, Business Process, Business IT

Alignment.

Abstract: The artifact presented in this paper contributes to enhanced knowledge transfer with a comprehensive,

integrated online enterprise information model. It can improve knowledge and understanding of Enterprise

Resource Planning (ERP) systems from different perspectives such as business and IT as well as enable

recognition of the dependencies between the relevant information objects and information models. The

authors develop the Enterprise Global Positioning System framework based on existing enterprise architecture

frameworks with a special focus on the integration between the business and IT views in order to reduce the

inherent complexity of cross-view corporate knowledge. The successful use of Enterprise GPS (EGPS)

focusses on the university context in this paper at first, but also shows its utility in non-university

environments. EGPS supports companies not only in terms of knowledge transfer between all parties being

involved but also facilitates further phases of the process life cycle like controlling, implementation, and

monitoring of processes. This paper shows the current state of development and highlights in detail the

extensive validation of the artifact.

1 INTRODUCTION

Business application systems, in particular,

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, are a

central theme in information systems research

(Esteves and Pastor, 2001; Esteves and Bohórquez,

2007). Due to the widespread use of business

application systems (Klaus et al., 2000), companies

expect students to be able to use, adapt, enhance and

operate these systems (Hess et al., 2012). With the

aim of providing practical training, lecturers at

universities are in great demand for comprehensive

training materials and access to complex application

systems. The students mainly come from the fields of

management, information systems, and computer

science. This paper focuses on classical ERP systems

as business application systems, even though

companies today often rely on industry-specific

special solutions and increasingly use big data as well

as artificial intelligence solutions. However, ERP

systems still form the backbone of most companies’

IT application landscape (Kappelman et al., 2018).

In practical parts of courses, one or more business

processes are independently worked on by the

students in a teaching and learning environment. This

environment usually consists of a fictitious company,

one or more application modules in the provided ERP

system and the teaching materials which contain tasks

and content explanations (Léger, 2006; Magal and

Word, 2009). The teaching materials are geared to the

needs of the various courses (e.g. introduction to

business administration, controlling, introduction to

information systems or application systems) or are

integrated by the teachers into their own courses

(Leyh, 2016).

The teaching materials created and used before

2010 mostly focused on the view of a system user.

They neglected the interaction between the IT system

and the business process and thus reduced the

sustainable learning success (Scheruhn et al., 2012).

With regard to the process life cycle, the learner can

be assigned to the phase of process execution. Many

teaching case studies only describe the data input and

output required for process execution in the user

interface of the ERP system. However, the acquisition

of context knowledge by the students about the entire

process life cycle, adjacent processes and relevant

information from different views at different levels of

278

Scheruhn, H., Bayramli, E. and Hintsch, J.

An Enterprise Information Model for Knowledge Transfer with Application Systems: The Current State of Enterprise GPS.

DOI: 10.5220/0009365602780289

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2020) - Volume 2, pages 278-289

ISBN: 978-989-758-417-6

detail is not supported. The importance of this,

however, is illustrated by practical use cases

(Weronek, 2012), which emphasize the importance of

education in which students learn to correctly

contextualize and fully understand the business

information system and its components.

This paper, aligned with the design science

research paradigm (Hevner et al., 2004), addresses

the problem (Peffers et al., 2008) that the described

teaching materials offer only a limited overview and

presents a solving artifact. The artifact is called the

Enterprise Global Positioning System (GPS) and

complements the described existing teaching

materials.

Contributions both to academia and practice are

made. The paper has the following structure: The next

section briefly summarises related work and

highlights the research gap. Subsequently, the

research design aligned with design science is

presented. The artifact itself is presented in detail in

section four in its development and current state. The

framework-based evaluation for validation takes

place in section five. Section six discusses the results

and the contribution. Finally, the paper concludes

with a presentation of the limitations as well as an

outlook on future work.

2 RELATED WORK

Teaching with and about ERP systems has employed

teachers for many years (Davis and Comeau, 2004;

Ruhi, 2016). Different teaching formats exist to

convey economic content and ERP system concepts

to pupils and students: Lectures and seminars, case

discussions, demonstrations with systems,

simulations, workshops, case studies, and simulation

games as well as project work (Ruhi, 2016).

Simulations, simulation games, and case studies are

often used in other formats. Simulations and

simulation games have their origin in military training

programs from the middle of the last century

(Kurbjuhn, 2012). However, both formats have also

found widespread use in non-military domains. These

include school and university education, health

training and in-house training (Kurbjuhn, 2012). In

simulations and simulation games, the term "serious

games" is often used (Breuer and Bente, 2010).

Various learning case studies have been carried

out in recent years. SAP itself uses the Internet

Demonstration and Evaluation Software (IDES)

(SAP AG, 2008) for its product demonstrations and

training programs. In addition, there are the case

studies which accompany ERPsim (Léger, 2006)

based on IDES, Super Skateboard Builders

Incorporated (Magal and Word, 2011) and the case

studies which have been built around the fictitious

company Global Bike Incorporated (GBI) (Scheruhn

et al., 2012). The GBI case studies have become

widely used in school and university teaching and are

prominently placed by SAP (LoBue, 2010).

However, the case studies are problematic in that

they provide little contextual information to the

student other than the instructions given (Scheruhn et

al., 2012). For example, it is difficult for a student to

understand which primary business process of a case

study he is currently involved in, who his internal or

external customers are, what the customers’ goals are

and what the required competencies are to enter the

data correctly. This paper addresses these

shortcomings and builds on enterprise architecture

frameworks for facilitating an overview in ERP case

studies with its solution artifact.

Examples of enterprise architecture frameworks

(EAFs) are TOGAF (The Open Group, 2009) or

LEADing Practice (Rosing et al., 2015), many of

which originate in the Zachman framework for

enterprise architecture (Zachman, 2011) from 1984.

Examples of tools for modeling information objects

are ARIS from Software AG, Visio from Microsoft,

aeneis from Intellior, IBM Rational Software

Architect or E+ from LEADing Practice. Examples of

information objects from different views and

hierarchical levels of an information system are

department goal, process step, or data table. The

manufacturers of standard business software offer

supporting software, often embedded in a multitude

of IT service management functions, which enable

the support of implementation projects of standard

business software. In particular, the exchange of

modeled information objects between this software

and the business standard software is of importance

for this paper. Examples are the SAP Solution

Manager or the Oracle User Productivity Kit.

The discipline of enterprise architecture tries to

coordinate the views business (strategy to process)

and IT (software and data) as well as technology

(platform and infrastructure) by means of an

integration layer (Winter and Fischer, 2007). The

Zachman framework has a matrix structure that is

also found in standardized frameworks such as

TOGAF (The Open Group, 2009). Metamodels are

an important part of EAFs. They depict information

objects and their relationships to each other in a

formal, calculable model (Strahringer, 2013).

Metamodels can be modularized in EAFs, according

to the matrix structure, in views (layers) and

hierarchical levels.

An Enterprise Information Model for Knowledge Transfer with Application Systems: The Current State of Enterprise GPS

279

The Open Group Architecture Framework

(TOGAF) is a recognized standard in enterprise

architecture (Buckl et al., 2009). TOGAF subdivides

the architecture of an enterprise information system

into the three domains Business (1), Information

Systems (2) and Technology (3). In addition, six

domains are subdivided: Motivation (1.1)

Organization (1.2), Function (1.3), Data (2.1),

Application (2.2) and Technology (3.1). In TOGAF,

however, the breakdown of the levels of detail is not

consistent. Although TOGAF uses an integrated level

concept for the information system and technology

aspects, it does not define this concept for the

business aspect. Corresponding inconsistencies can

also be detected using formal methods (Polovina et

al., 2016).

Due to the missing localization of information

objects of the aspect business in the metamodel of

TOGAF further reference models and related artifacts

are regarded. While the Supply Chain Operations

Reference (SCOR) model (Supply Chain Council,

2010) and APQC's Process Classification Framework

(APQC PCF) (APQC, 2015) describe the process

view in detail, the LEADing Practice Framework

considers all of the above views (Rosing et al., 2015).

SAP Solution Manager, as an example tool for

enterprise architecture management (SAP SE, 2018)

and its partially also inconsistent Best Practice

Content (SAP SE, 2019) are implemented in the

application view.

Finally, the aspect "Technology" should be

compliant with standards in the context of industry

4.0 such as RAMI 4.0 and IIRA. (Bundesministerium

für Bildung und Forschung, 2018; Heidrich et. al.,

2016).

In the following, the research approach of this

paper is explained in more detail.

3 RESEARCH DESIGN

The research approach follows the design science

process model presented by Peffers et al. (2008). The

main steps of the research are shown in Figure 1.

Demonstration and evaluation are summarized into

one step (Hevner et al., 2004). The artifact has been

iteratively extended in many research cycles (Hevner

et al., 2004). Here, these many cycles are summarized

into two phases.

Phase 1: Conventional teaching materials used in

teaching with ERP systems have the following

problem: They support learners in independently

exploring (and learning) contexts of the enterprise

architecture of the example company under

discussion (Identify Problem & Motivate) only in an

inadequate way. In order to improve students'

understanding of information objects and their

dependencies, it is therefore proposed to enrich

conventional teaching materials (in text or slide

format) with a comprehensive and integrated

enterprise information model (requirements A, see

Table 1).

Requirements A are addressed by the

development (Design & Development) of a first

artifact part (EGPS Content, see Figure 3). Extensive

and integrated models are created on all essential

views of the enterprise architecture framework. These

models have been successfully used in university

teaching for several years and thus extend

conventional teaching materials. In a first step, the

Figure 1: Research cycles (summarised into two main phases).

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successful and beneficial application validates the

artifact (demonstration & evaluation).

Phase 2: A large number of models used meets A1.

Model diversity is justified because it reflects reality.

However, this diversity leads to a high degree of

complexity in the learning situation and can have a

negative effect on the learning objectives (Scheruhn

et al., 2013).

Table 1: Requirements for the artifact Enterprise GPS.

ID Description

A1 A comprehensive description of all

architectural views of a company

A2 Integration of the model types of all views

B1 A clear delimitation of views

B2 Cross-view definition of detail levels

B3 Assignability of information object and

information model types

B4 Horizontal and vertical navigation between the

individual models

To handle this additional complexity, the

Enterprise GPS will be developed based on existing

enterprise architecture frameworks with a special

focus on the integration between business and IT

aspects (Design & Development). The requirements

B are addressed (Define Objectives of a Solution).

The Enterprise GPS has recently been successfully

used in an industrial context (Demonstration &

Evaluation). Its evaluation is performed using

multiple criteria (Sonnenberg and Brocke, 2012; Prat

et al., 2015). Its current state is presented in this

article (Communication).

The next section describes the artifact. The

complete current state is described.

4 ENTERPRISE GPS

When comparing the above reference models, the

problem arises that information objects are described

synonymously on different levels (e.g. process and

process step (APQC, 2015; Rosing et al., 2015)). A

clear view of the levels of detail and corresponding

subdivision of the views is necessary to ensure

vertical navigation within the views and horizontal

navigation between the views (requirement B4).

In Enterprise GPS, therefore, three hierarchical

levels are defined first, with the level of detail

increasing from top to bottom. Level three forms the

logical level (Scheruhn et al., 2015). Below the

highest level of detail, a fourth level is introduced, the

physical level (Scheruhn et al., 2015). In fact, the

fourth level should contain the attribute structure of

all media or documents involved (such as

measurement protocols, certificates, contracts, and

general business documents), which regulate the data

input/output process (requirement B2).

The metamodels examined are combined into a

single process layer with the following information

object types (excerpt) on the four levels developed: 1.

process, 2. process step, 3. process activity and 4.

process attributes.

In order to transfer the four levels of detail to all

views (layer) (requirement B2), a typical hierarchy of

an enterprise must be derived, which can be applied

consistently to all layers and always follows the

hierarchization concept of the process layer

(requirement B2).

For the definition of the layers, the standard of the

LEADing Practice Framework (Rosing et al., 2015)

was used and the nomenclature for 38 of the 78 meta

object types defined there was mapped. Accordingly,

the Enterprise GPS Framework consists of eight

different layers. Each of the eight layers is always

Figure 2: Enterprise GPS Framework Map.

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281

Figure 3: Enterprise GPS metamodel.

assigned exactly four identical levels. All information

object types defined in the framework are always

assigned to a combination of these. The model types

that comprise the information object types can also be

assigned to several combinations (several levels).

This is referred to as a location in the EGPS Map

(Figure 2). This means that the layer and the level of

the model types must always be the same as that of

the object types contained. The object types are

connected to each other by vertical (level) or

horizontal (layer) relations.

These relations are the basis for the so-called

horizontal or vertical navigation between different

model types. A so-called vertical navigation takes

place between the model types at different levels. You

can branch to several lower-level model types or

aggregate them into several higher-level model types.

Both are always process-oriented in EGPS. In this

case, the object types are subordinate or superior to

other object types (or the same object types) at

different levels via relations (object types from

different levels or layers can be equated). Vertical

navigation is required whenever the vertical

relationships between object types extend beyond a

model. The same applies to the horizontal

relationship between the object types. These can also

be mapped in one or more model types and can be

reached by the user through horizontal navigation

between different layers.

A documentation of the EGPS Framework is

typically done in a table representation. The permitted

object and model types, their relations and navigation

options between the eight layers and four levels are

also defined and thus assigned to 32 different cells.

When implementing the EGPS framework, two

further artifacts arise. These are the EGPS Content

(built in research phase 1, see section 3) and EGPS

Navigator (see EGPS metamodel in Figure 3).

The EGPS Content for GBI/SAP currently

describes a large part of the SAP University Alliance

case studies for SAP ERP (incl. SAP S/4 HANA)

based on the model company GBI with the focus on

the instantiation of model and object types. By

adapting the GBI organizational structure to the

EGPS competency layer, an automated transfer of the

remaining views to already mentioned demo

companies such as IDES or others is possible.

The EGPS Navigator enables the user of the

EGPS Framework or the EGPS Content to

automatically move from one model (type) to another

in order to illustrate the relations between the

contained objects (types). Essential components are

an instantiation of the EGPS navigation (right grey

dotted-line frame) and the EGPS Map (left grey

dotted-line frame).

The evaluation of Enterprise GPS is presented

below.

5 EVALUATION

A difficulty of design science projects lies in the

validation of the results (Sonnenberg and Brocke,

2012). In this regard, Sonnenberg and Brocke (2012)

propose a framework with four evaluation steps.

EGPS is validated according to this framework.

EVAL 1 validates the research approach (research

gap). EVAL 2 validates the artifact design. EVAL 3

evaluates EGPS on the basis of an instantiation of the

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artifact but in an artificial environment. In EVAL 4,

validity is represented by the real and beneficial

application of EGPS. The evaluation steps are shown

in Table 2. We used various criteria for evaluation.

These evaluation criteria match with those identified

by Prat et al. (2015) and Sonnenberg and Brocke

(2012).

Table 2: Evaluation steps.

Step

(EVAL)

Methodological approach Evaluation

criteria

1 Validation of the research

justification

Novelty

2 Ontology-based formal

analysis of the artifact’s

structural integrity

Consistency

and

comprehens

ibility

3 Feasibility study based on

prototypical implementation

Technical

and

operational

feasibility

4 Field study amongst students

and teachers as well as case

study with two company

cases from industry

Usefulness,

completenes

s, alignment

with

business

5.1 EVAL 1: Research Justification

The validity of the research approach (research

question, research gap, and approach) could be

demonstrated, as already described in the introduction

and in the course of studying the relevant literature:

Further support in understanding and navigating the

complexities surrounding ERP systems is required.

5.2 EVAL 2: Formal Analysis of

Structural Integrity

For the problem-oriented research approach,

requirements are derived in two iterations addressed

by the artifact. The EGPS contains extensive

specifications of all object types used, their detailed

assignments in the EGPS framework, their relations

to each other, the model types formed from them and

the possible horizontal or vertical navigation between

them, which is recorded in a convention manual.

By using formal methods, the design specification

of the Enterprise GPS could be verified

mathematically and essentially confirmed view-

specifically (Polovina et al., 2016). A subsequent

specification of the underlying ontology, semantics,

and relations within the information models used led

to further improvements. In particular, this was

implemented by a continuous process-oriented

hierarchy across all layers in a further adaptation.

5.3 EVAL 3: Prototypical

Implementation

For the instantiation of EGPS, the choice of the

modeling tool was initially essential. Four tools were

compared: ARIS Architect & Design, Enterprise Plus

(E+), Microsoft Visio and SAP Solution Manager.

Important criteria were the ability to map the EGPS

standard and the automated exchange of information

models and objects with SAP Solution Manager for

comparison with SAP ERP. Since a variety of models

had to be developed for the EGPS content, ARIS

Architect & Design and E+ (MS Visio interface) was

chosen as shown in Figure 4.

The recent prototypes comprise the first six layers

(Value - Data) and all four levels of the EGPS

framework. The EGPS Navigator supports horizontal

and vertical navigation. The current position can be

displayed in the EGPS Map (requirement B4). EGPS

instantiation also uses the SAP Solution Manager for

model synchronization. This allows parts of the

models or objects defined in ARIS to be transferred

to SAP ERP or S/4 HANA and SAP HANA in the

context of the EGPS content, making it easier to

implement business process changes. The prototype

can be reached via the EGPS Navigator at the

following address in German: http://t1p.de/3tfe.

5.4 EVAL 4: Validation in Academic

and Industrial Context

EGPS was validated in an academic context, among

university students and educators as well as in an

industrial context with two company cases.

Figure 4: Comparison of modeling languages.

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5.4.1 Academic Context

Besides SAP ERP, Microsoft Navision is most widely

used in ERP-based teaching at German universities as

we learned in a survey, which was conducted with

489 lecturers at German universities, universities of

applied sciences and vocational academies in 2016

(Sicorello, 2013; Müller, 2016). Within the SAP

University Alliance, the SAP University Competence

Center Magdeburg provides more than 3000

educational institutions worldwide with teaching and

learning environments. These consist mainly of the

GBI or IDES model company and various SAP

software solutions. In addition to the teaching

materials provided, Enterprise GPS could be made

available as a supplementary artifact via the EGPS

Navigator to the teachers or students interactively.

The models from the EGPS content could be made

available within the framework of the case studies.

The EGPS Navigator has been widely used for two

years. Since June 2016, more than 11,000 hits have

been recorded worldwide, especially from America

(e.g. Silicon Valley and Colombia), Europe and Asia.

According to the survey (Müller, 2016), ARIS and

Visio are used in almost equal proportions at German

universities. Other modeling tools are far behind,

18% of respondents use Enterprise GPS with GBI.

62% of them consider horizontal and vertical

navigation to be useful. This resulted in different

usage frequencies of the individual model types in the

different cells (83% for the EPCs of the application

layer on level 3, 67% for the BPMN diagrams of the

process layer on level 1-3, 56% for the ERM of the

data layer on level 3 and only 8% for the mask

diagrams of the application layer on level 4).

5.4.2 Industrial Context

Our current projects also show the applicability of

Enterprise GPS for two cases from industry (see

Table 3).

Case A: Over a period of a total of two years, the

project participants were able to improve parts of the

strategic and operational sales process within the

framework of two projects at an internationally

positioned medium-sized company in the area of

electronical motor construction.

In the initial phase of the first project, the

company wanted to migrate its existing big data

structure (Data layer) to a new database system.

Further specification and especially the

implementation of the project made it clear to all

participants that integration with the management

processes to be supported (Process Layer) and with

the application used by the management for weekly

determination of the break-even point (Application

Layer) was necessary. Using EGPS, this integration

could create transparency for all participants as well

as constitute a continuous structure from the company

level down to the media breaks at the workplace (3)

and document level (4). Figure 6 collects all

assignments of the structural / completeness

evaluation.

Figure 5 illustrates the usage of EGPS in Case A’s

first project. Starting at the company level, the

distribution of the management process to five

different plants was presented in BPMN (P1). A

detailed examination of the third plant at the

department level (P2) shows the release of the

management report in the highest swimlane located

there. In the two lower swimlanes, the sales data (see

the second project) must first be aggregated plant-

Table 3: Evaluation cases for EVAL 4.

Case A Case B

Case

business

model

The industry-leading midsized company in the area of

electro motors construction

Leading consultancy company that

implements and migrates SAP solutions

for its worldwide customers

Case’s

application

software

usage

SAP & custom software used for logistics and strategic

management on different databases SAP Solution

Manager only used for IT service management; Quality

management spread over process modeling tool &

document management

SAP Solution Manager used for SAP

implementation based on SAP Activate;

SAP best practice models synchronized

with ARIS and other process modeling

tools like E+ and aeneis

Contribution

to validity

by EGPS

Project 1: Improvement of Management Processes: Use-

fulness, completeness, alignment with business

Project 2: Integration of quality mgmt. f. order

processing: Usefulness, completeness, align. w. business

Usefulness, completeness, alignment

with business: Improvement of Quality

of SAP Best Practice models for “Order

to cash”

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Figure 5: Usage of EGPS in Case A.

Table 4: Benefit of EGPS for Case B.

Position in the EGPS Map The benefit of EGPS for Company

V1, V2, V3 & V4 Adaptable integration of a cascaded sustainability balanced scorecard over three levels

with the exemplary assignment of key performance indicators

C3 Adaptable role concept for the process-oriented organizational structure

P3 & A3 Parallel display as BPMN and EPC on customers demand

P3 Representation of SAP document flow and adaptable customers documents

P2 & P3 Process selection matrix for transparent differentiation of existing company scenarios

A3 System organizational unit types as configurable SAP layer models

P3 Extensible business vocabularies and business rules

D3 & D4 Adaptable and extensible SAP data models e.g. for visualizing extensions of S/4 HANA

data model e.g. regarding integration of business partner and customer

D1, D2, D3 & D4 Future integration of HANA views into S/4 HANA

A4 200 mask attributes for a structured comparison of ERP masks, S/4 HANA masks and

FIORI apps & for the layout of new Fiori apps

{V|C|S|P|A|D}4 Adaptable definitions of compliance and performance indicators for all layers at level 4

All positions Automated generation of process and sustainability/environment documentations

A3 Improved usage of SAP Solution Manager for model-based customizing

S123 Hierarchical selection from all End-to-End, baseline and support services offered by

SAP

A3 & A4 Support of SAP Activate Prototyping by content of 6 SAP ERP modules (e.g., sales)

specifically and then merged for all five plants in the

company controlling department located there before

release processing or cancellation processing can take

place, which is frequently required in practice. At

work center level (A3), the improvements found

compared to the as-is state can be recognized on the

basis of newly created SAP Big Data applications as

to-be state. These applications are compared to the

media breaks that existed previously in the as-is state

due to a non-integrated use of Excel depicted as an

EPC. These applications are fed by entity types,

which are first arranged on the same level as star

schema ERM (D3) and then enriched with

controlling-specific evaluation dimensions specified

by companies as (foreign) key attributes on the

document level (D4) in the new database

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management. Finally, the new application can be

recognized as A4, which could now provide the

management with the required break-even point

every Monday morning faster and more reliably.

In a second project, the actual state of the process

was already determined in the context of the EGPS,

whereby all documents provided by the company

were assigned a layer/level in the EGPS Map. The

description of the developed company-specific EGPS

content as a prototype also follows the layer/level

assignment of the EGPS map in the respective final

report (see also Figure 6).

While the project participants were able to map

the value layer with sustainability balanced

scorecards at the organization (V1) and department

(V2) level, BPMN diagrams down to workplace level

were used in the process layer. The application layer

contains the SAP S/4 HANA systems to be examined

as well as SAP ERP systems. On level 4 (A4), the

project participants presented the (foreign) key

relationships between SAP Fiori masks and the

input/output documents of the process layer involved

as well as the quality problems resulting from the not

yet digitized media breaks. As the most important

result, case A plans to convert its worldwide quality

management to EGPS. This will be used for

automatically creating quality and sustainability

certifications that have to be provided on a regular

basis.

Case B: The case used for evaluation is a leading

consultancy company that implements SAP software

solutions for its worldwide customers. Their “Best

Practice” process templates are provided by SAP and

can be imported into SAP Solution Manager. The

resulting BPMN models can be assigned to levels 1-

3 of the application layer. In an investigation of

structural properties with regard to consistency and

completeness, about 169 end-to-end, baseline and

support processes (level 2) could be examined and

about ten different structural breaks could be

identified and typified on levels 1-4:

Among other things, levels were swapped, BPMN

conventions were not observed, assignments were

located incorrectly, different languages were mixed,

process descriptions were assigned syntactically

incorrectly or with incomplete content. The process

description ID was also partially missing.

SAP Solution Manager maps only about 50% of

the required object types and even only 30% of the

required model types (Scheruhn et al., 2013). The

current version 7.2 has also changed little about that.

The authors see considerable potential for

improvement here. A project’s content (objects and

models) can be synchronized with an external

modeling tool such as ARIS or E+ (next version) via

an interface of the SAP Solution Manager. By

extending the application layer of the modelling tools

by five additional layers of EGPS with the

simultaneous complete integration of the additional

layers on all 4 levels, usability, comprehensibility

and, above all, acceptance by all participants should

be considerably improved (see Table 4).

A subsequent investigation on the part of the

company and its customers should clarify to what

extent the improvements make business sense and are

adaptable or scalable to the respective customer.

Figure 6summarizes the above described four

different validation tasks in the academic

environment and for the two cases. It compares these

regarding the structural completeness in the context

of EGPS. Not surprisingly the mostly used structural

parts of EGPS are the “classic” P1-P3, A3-A4 and

D3-D4 selections, followed by the value and

competency layers on all levels. Due to the didactical

structure of the teaching case studies (e.g. only used

as a clicking guideline) used by German universities,

only the three uppermost levels are accessed.

The next section summarizes this paper, shows

limitations and draws a conclusion.

Figure 6: Eval 4: Summary of EGPS application comparing their structure/completeness.

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6 DISCUSSION AND

CONTRIBUTION

The problem addressed in the paper was identified as

the lack of clarity and the limited and non-integrated

selection of views and levels of detail in the execution

of case studies in typical teaching and learning

environments with ERP case studies.

These limitations make it difficult to understand

important ERP information objects from case study

documents and their interrelationships when teaching

or learning.

As a solution, an integration of all required views

at user selectable levels of detail was implemented

through the development of the Enterprise GPS. The

Enterprise GPS Framework builds on recognized

enterprise architecture frameworks such as LEADing

Practice and process frameworks such as SCOR and

APQC's PCF. When applied by lecturers or students,

new difficulties due to additional complexity should

be avoided.

Enterprise GPS EAF was instantiated as

Enterprise GPS Navigator and Enterprise GPS for

SAP Content using ARIS Architect & Designer and

E+, SAP Solution Manager and SAP ERP or SAP S/4

HANA. For easy orientation of the user, each

individual model is graphically located in a view and

on one or more levels. The authors call this part of the

framework EGPS Map because of its analogy to a

navigation system.

A subsequent online demonstration of the

Enterprise GPS Navigator and EGPS Map based on

the EGPS Content for SAP was made available to

teachers and students of SAP UA via the SAP

Learning Hub and ARIS Business Publisher.

An online evaluation showed that EGPS still has

limited prominence amongst teachers. The portion of

teachers who are already working with the models

rates the horizontal and vertical navigation in the

EGPS as “useful”. This seems to be limited to three

out of six layers and three out of four levels. Both

BPMN diagrams and EPCs are often shared by the

instructors, which is very well supported by different

layers of Enterprise GPS that are integrated at

different hierarchy levels.

Compared to the academic scenario, the industry

cases show a significantly extended structural use of

the EGPS layers and levels to support knowledge

transfer among all participants. In addition, both

companies rate the usefulness of the EGPS, its

structural completeness and its compliance with

business management challenges as high.

No car driver today wants to do without a GPS

navigation system. Many companies still believe that

they can navigate through their company without a

GPS. Like a conventional GPS, Enterprise GPS

supports several vertical "zoom factors" from the

company level to the departments and workplaces to

the documents located there. EGPS thus provides an

overview factor as demanded in the literature

(Weronek, 2012; Robert et al., 2013). In contrast to a

normal GPS, Enterprise GPS also combines various

maps that are required to successfully manage a

company. As an analogy to GPS for motorways, it

also combines (horizontally) e.g. train, airplane, ship

and rail connections at exactly the same (vertical)

level of detail, e.g. continent, country, road, house. In

Enterprise GPS these different maps are called Value,

Competency, Service, Process, Application, Data,

Platforms, and Infrastructure. They are mapped as

perspectives in an information model. One challenge

was to find a complete and consistent zoom factor for

a typical company across all these perspectives,

which had to be easy to understand and range from

the company level to the workplace documents.

First evaluations in the university and company

context show that well-defined parts of the EGPS are

used up to a complete use. An important part of this

success can be the complete integration of a leading

IT service management software (SAP Solution

Manager) or its enhancement by extending the

application layer by five additional layers of the

EGPS. Consequently, benefits of EGPS go well

beyond knowledge transfer and can be used, for

example, for the automated generation of quality and

sustainability certificates (Case A) or for an improved

model-based implementation of ERP systems, as

could be demonstrated by the example of the SAP

systems used by case B.

7 LIMITATIONS AND

RESEARCH OUTLOOK

The authors have made considerable simplifications

in the arrangement of various existing EAFs. In

particular, the arrangement of the underlying

LEADing Practice Framework was rotated by 90

degrees. Reasons for this are the complete integration

of the SAP Solution Manager as well as a division of

the object relations into horizontal and vertical. The

vertical relations, in turn, are regarded as process-

oriented decomposition similar to SCOR and APQC

PCF. However, this is only possible due to the limited

selection of 38 (out of 78) existing LEADing Practice

objects. The associated model types are typically

displayed horizontally within a layer, such as a

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BPMN model on level 1, 2 or 3 (e.g.

predecessor/successor relationship). Model types

such as organigrams, on the other hand, are vertically

hierarchized over several levels within a layer. This

concept could also be considered for almost all other

model types. Exceptions are the event-driven process

chain (Figure 5), which is typically displayed from

top to bottom, and even more clearly the Balanced

Scorecard. The last example makes it very clear that

the process views of the Balanced Scorecard are

hierarchized vertically in a process-oriented way on

levels 1, 2 and 3. However, the strategic goals of the

customer or success perspective and the associated

strategy or vision and mission are superior in each

case. At this point, the process-oriented overlaps with

a "natural" hierarchy or order of the objects of the real

world, which can only be represented to a limited

extent in EGPS. The authors expect a similar overlap

in the representation of the technical layer, which can

typically be hierarchized component/object-oriented.

In the future, the EGPS for SAP content will be

enhanced to fully cover the Technology layer, which

it currently does not. This should allow a better

mapping of domains such as Industry 4.0 or technical

information of SAP Solution Manager. Furthermore,

further SAP best practice models are to be localized

by EGPS in order to further increase their usability.

An adaptability and scalability check has to be made

at the customers. Furthermore, the EGPS for SAP

Content is to be further developed in Technology

Layer in the context of Industry 4.0 and its usability

is to be evaluated not only in teaching at universities

but also in the industrial sector.

By the continuous use of formal methods on the

EGPS framework, the authors want to extend the

user-friendliness (e.g. for schools) of the EGPS

Navigator with new tools appearing on the market

like E+ from Leading Practice and AENEIS from

Intellior continuously.

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